Halloween in Miniature 2010 - Day 4: Meet some of the guests

Halloween Appetizers: C. Verstraete - Finger tacos or eyeballs anyone?

Welcome to Day 4 of this year's 12 Days of Halloween in Miniature party! Wow, quite the crowd! (Hey, where's your ticket? Sorry, if you missed the front door, go back to Day 1.)

I hope you had enough to eat and are enjoying yourself? Grab a few appetizers I made and let's meet some of the guests, shall we?



Shh! Better step lightly. Matilda's prone to get a bit grumpy if she doesn't finish reading the latest issue of Ghosts Weekly, so we better let her be for now.



Florine the half-Scale Witch, however, is a right friendly soul and loves to talk! Say hello and keep moving unless you don't mind hearing about her latest spell and her failed baked toad recipe for the next hour! Oh, look it's Wizard Adair. Such a handsome fellow and I hear he's got some spells that make Merlin look like an amateur!



The dolls are all by British doll maker Angela Haworth of Molly's House. (Dolls are 1" to 1 foot (a man is 6" tall) and half or 1/24th scale is 1/2" to 1 foot or 3" tall.)

Angela, who's been creating in miniature "for as long as I can remember" first began crafting as a girl by making accessories for her Sindy and Barbie dolls. Years later, she hoped to get her daughter interested in miniatures, but it never worked out that way.

"I got into dollhouse scale when I was expecting my daughter 14 years ago," she says. "I was planning on making a house for her, but it turned into a hobby for myself."

A limited budget forced her to make her own dolls and furnishings, but it was something she found she enjoyed. When she received a 1/24th scale furniture set as a gift, Angela realized she liked working even smaller.

She now sculpts her own dolls in polymer clay in both scales (along with trying some quarter scale figures too!), and also dresses porcelain dolls from parts she buys.


Which witch?


Sculpting has been fun, she says, as "I love the characters that come from the clay. I can start off making one person but another, totally different character will emerge."

Angela's favorite themes are Medieval, fantasy and Tudor. Lucky for her, she can find real-life inspiration just a short distance away. "We are so lucky to have three Tudor houses, all decked out with Tudor furniture, just a short bus ride away (I don't drive). In the summer holidays we visit some of the larger Georgian houses that are a little further away. Walking around these old houses, I like to imagine the characters that might have lived there, and I come home and try and turn these into dolls."

Wasn't that a great visit? Well, let's see who we run into next...



** Back: Day 3 **Next: Halloween in Miniature, Day 5

** Visit Angela's blog and say hello.

** Cool free Halloween signs.